and joining us now for more on this from washington, the former chief economist of the international monetary fund and bloomberg view columnist, simon johnson. he's the co-author of "white house burning: our national debt and why it matters to you," now out in paperback. simon, good to see you this morning. >> nice to be with you. >> simon, if you could help us through this over the next week or so, it doesn't look like there's a path to avoiding the sequestration if you listen to the two sides. so how damaging would this be? because we've heard a couple different versions of it that would have immediate impacts, more than 750,000 jobs lost perhaps. others say it won't be that bad. what's your view? >> i think it's going to be bad. we're going to lose jobs, gdp is going to slow. i don't know if it will push us back into recession. but the effect on lower-income americans including children is really very harsh. given what's already happened with income inequality in this country in the last couple of years, this is nasty stuff. >> simon, can you give us a sense, perhaps, of how quick